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Another really stupid mistake on my part. Right after I graduated college I had found a decent job in a professional office. Every week, however, people were getting fired little by little. None of us ever knew how long we had, and on top of that, the owner was kind of a creep. In the meantime, I had been applying for jobs that were in my actual career field, some of which were out of the area I was living at the time.

Over a holiday weekend visit with my family, I ran into Portuguese Man o’ War that I’d met before but didn’t remember much about the interaction. For whatever reason, we hit it off this time. (I think I was still hurting after my college boyfriend breakup, so I wasn’t seeing things clearly.) Sex wasn’t even good; he had a small dick and had bad breath from being diabetic, and he wasn’t even good looking, so I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. At the time, I thought he was just this really sweet guy. After only two months of seeing each other on weekends, I was offered a job in across the state where he lived, and we decided to get a place together.

About three weeks into our living arrangement, I knew I’d made a mistake. He turned out to be clingy and crazy. My job required me to bring my work home, even though it was unpaid. He didn’t like that. I said too bad, this is my career, and this is how it works in this field if I want to succeed. He also didn’t like the fact that this job was taking attention away from him – yes, that’s how needy he was. We were fighting like crazy, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of the situation safely, because when I told him I needed space, it angered him.

I’d kept a diary where I’d written my feelings about things over the years and had a suspicion that he’d been reading it. My suspicion was confirmed when I purposely wrote something about his small dick. That’s when things got really scary. He cornered me and wouldn’t allow me out of our bedroom. He was trying to get me to hit him so he could call the police on me, but I knew better. He did unacceptable things to torture my kid, and that’s when I knew I had to take legal action against him. I was issued a temporary restraining order against him, but officers allowed him inside the house to get his things without me being there. He destroyed my computer that I used for work, put itching powder (made with fiberglass) in my bras, rubbed deodorant all over the toilet seat, took all of my hygeine products, and said some pretty awful things to the officers about me. I’m sure it was obvious to them that he was a shitty person.

Not coincidentally, over a period of three weeks, I had three flat tires. We had to go to court over who was going to get to keep the apartment and to continue with the injunction. He claimed that I used him for money, that he’d paid for everything and I paid for nothing, which was a complete lie. I was fully prepared and presented copies of checks, receipts, etc., as my contribution to the household. Being that I’d moved a distance to live there and didn’t want to move my child again, he had clearly lied through his teeth, and apparently had a scarred history with women (I also learned that his ex wife had also had an injunction against him), I was granted a permanent injunction against him and was able to stay at my place.

But Portuguese Man o’ War didn’t stop there. He reported me to child services with claims that I did drugs in front of my kid all day long. I invited the caseworker into my home and explained the situation, and it was clear who was a liar. Besides the fact that my new job would have detected drug use, my kid didn’t even know what a drug was.

Thankfully, I never saw him again. Right after him is when I started dating cops.